at the Arthur-Rimbaud vocational high school in La Courneuve, a “JO alternative” to dropping out of school

Alexandre Menozzi (29) sits in the teacher’s room and unfolds posters of Olympic athletes. They must come and decorate the corridors of the Arthur-Rimbaud Vocational High School in La Courneuve (Seine-Saint-Denis) for the third year in a row, as part of the “Olympic and Paralympic Week” organized in schools across the country. initiative from the Ministry of Education. These “treats” are almost the only official traces of the existence of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024, which will nevertheless take place around this high school oriented towards professions in the tertiary sector, sales and personal services, in the northwest of the department. However, the establishment has a Generation 2024 badge, issued by the same ministry to those who wish “take advantage of the unique energy of the toys”.

“We received a bag, two posters and an escape gameexplains Alexandre Menozzi and his colleague Kevin Destouches, both PE and PE teachers. Maybe we missed something to get more, as I said. » But anyway: with their class of 2^of The “JO alternative”, these teachers stand out and innovate, together with a teaching team determined to combat the clichés that tarnish the image of vocational high schools, especially in the working-class neighborhoods, too often caricatured as second-rate schools where We end up lacking place at a general upper secondary school.

Study here 520 students from La Courneuve and the neighboring towns of Stains, Dugny or Le Bourget, most from priority districts in the city’s politics. “We’re not that bad”, says Athena David, charismatic principal who splits her duties between the Arthur-Rimbaud and Denis-Papin technical high schools, across town, citing the 81% student success rate. Or 8 points above the result “ expected” due to the socio-economic characteristics of the students, as calculated by the “IVAL” indicator (secondary school added value index) to measure the companies’ contribution.

The situation is no less “fragile”, she acknowledges, between social difficulties, absences and dropping out of school, or even tensions outside the establishment, but which pass through it. That day there was much talk of the death of Wanys R., 18, a former high school student killed on a scooter during a collision with a police car on March 13 in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis).

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